


The Long Road Home

by theunicornandtheraven



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunicornandtheraven/pseuds/theunicornandtheraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft doesn't trust Sherlock to be alone while he takes down Moriarty's web, so he sends Molly to take care of his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Road Home

The car stopped in front of Barts when Molly left work. She smelled like chemicals and death and wanted nothing more than a shower, take-away, and crap telly. So when she caught sight of it outside the hospital, she sighed heavily.

The driver opened the door for her, and she slid into the seat next to a woman typing on a Blackberry.

“Is he okay?” Molly said.

The woman made a noncommittal noise without looking up from the screen. Molly sighed again and pulled out her phone.

One new text: _It’s cold here. SH_

_Where’s ‘here’? -Molly_

She waited for a response for a few minutes before pocketing her phone. The car pulled into another one of Mycroft’s empty garages; she got out, and the car sped off.

“Afternoon,” said Mycroft.

“Hello,” Molly said. She didn’t approach him, but even from several feet away, she could tell that he looked thinner and paler than when she’d last seen him.

“I see you’ve been in contact with my brother.”

“What of it?” she said, crossing her arms. Before he’d left, Sherlock had told her that Mycroft monitored his phone.

“I’ll be frank. Sherlock is not well.”

“Of course not. But you think I can help.”

“Very good deduction. It seems you might have learned a thing or two from him.” He smiled, but Molly saw that it didn’t reach his eyes. “He hasn’t been sleeping or eating. I fear he may go back to drug use soon.”

Molly hadn’t realised. Sherlock usually asked about London and John. Occasionally, he’d give opinions on cases that came through the morgue. Now she felt silly for not thinking of it. He’d never open up with Mycroft listening.

“I might have helped him already if you didn’t eavesdrop.”

Mycroft scowled for half a second before his face settled back into a controlled mask. “It’s a necessary security precaution. That aside, Sherlock shouldn’t be on his own.”

“Y-You want me to go with him?”

“Do try to keep up.” He sounded so much like Sherlock for a moment that it hurt. “You’re leaving today.”

“You can’t do that,” she cried.

“It’s done. Everyone here is under the impression that you’ve left for an extended trip with Doctors without Borders.”

She glanced around her, as if looking for answers. “How?”

“Email. Changed a few records. Child’s play.”

“You can’t do this. What- what about Toby?”

Her voice shook, threatening the onset of tears. She blinked quickly, her face reddening from a mix of anger and shock.

“Mrs. Hudson took him.” He tried to sound sympathetic.

Molly took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Sherlock would come back sooner if he had an assistant, and Molly thought she’d filled that role well in the past.

“Fine. You win. Where are we going?”

 

Molly, newly christened Anna Sigerson, scanned the crowd at the baggage claim. Another passenger tripped over her, reaching forward to grab a suitcase. He mumbled an apology in Russian.

She got her bag and hurried away to read the note he’d placed in her coat pocket.

22 Gagrin St. Make sure you’re not followed. Come straight here. SH

Molly recognized his messy, angular handwriting. He’d drawn a map with directions below.

She headed for the train that ran from the airport to downtown. The feeling of the note in her pocket warmed her a bit when she stepped into the snow outside. She walked quickly, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. The people around her pulled their limbs close under heavy coats, and the snow falling made their faces hard to remember.

His route led her to his building, a house split into flats. It needed several repairs and a coat of paint, but she stepped inside. At least in the vestibule, she couldn’t see her breath. She headed up the stairs to number 22 and knocked on the door.

Sherlock, rail-thin and with close-cropped blond hair, ushered her inside. “Molly,” he said once he’d closed the door.

“Hello,” she said.

The pair stood in the entranceway, looking each other over, cataloguing changes, and refreshing memories. The silence broke when Molly shrugged off her coat.

“Mycroft shouldn’t have sent you here.”

“I wouldn’t have minded if he’d asked first.”

“He’s too much of a prat.”

Molly smiled. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”

“Of course.” For a moment, Sherlock wondered what to do now that she’d arrived. “I suppose I should give you the tour.”

Molly hung her coat on a peg and following him, dragging her suitcase behind her. “How long have you been here?”

“Two weeks… This is the living room.”

It contained a battered sofa and a coffee table strewn with manilla folders and a charging laptop. Nothing else.

“It’s, um, cosy,” Molly said, forcing a smile that Sherlock did not return.

“Kitchen’s over there. He indicated it with a jerk of his head, then walked down a short hallway. “Bathroom’s to the right, your room on the left, and mine’s on the end. I’ll help you unpack if you want.”

She mumbled “thank you” and brought the suitcase into her bedroom, which was bare save a bed and dresser. It took them five minutes to put everything away. When they finished, she looked around and sighed. Home sweet home, she thought.

 

After dinner (She’d bothered him about eating, but he’d refused. She left it alone.), he called her over to the sofa.

“These files are the primary members of the web. We’re going to kill all of him,” he said.

“Oh.” Molly went a little pale.

“They’ll figure out someone’s targeting them before long. So you’ve got to get good at hiding yourself now.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a good teacher. I trust you.”

Sherlock didn’t know what to say to that, so he reached for a file and opened it across his lap. “This is our first one, Misha Andrei. Moriarty’s link to the Russian mafia and government.”

Molly tried to memorize Andrei’s face: his beady eyes, bristly moustache, and cold stare. “When?”

“As soon as I’m sure you won’t get killed.”

 

Molly slipped through the press of the people in the square. She’d been at it long enough that her feet hurt. Hands jammed in her pockets, she fiddled with a slip of paper as she walked. She’d lost count of her loops around the square when she spotted him.

“10 o’clock,” said Sherlock. His voice came through her earpiece. She jumped. He hadn’t said anything since they’d left the house that morning.

She didn’t have a microphone, but she whispered “I see” before bumping into her target. Andrei almost fell over.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said. One hand flew up to her mouth in shock. The other just brushed his A slip of paper passed between them.

Molly disappeared in the press of people around them. She moved toward the edge of the square, headed for a gap between two stores.

“Looked fine from up here,” Sherlock said. “I’ll see you in a moment.”

She walked down the alley and crouched behind some boxes to hide. Andrei followed a minute later. He looked around, slowly turning in a circle.

The gunshot made her jump. Misha fell. Molly yelped and moved out of her hiding place, tilting her head back to get a glimpse of Sherlock in the window. She heard him swear to himself as she slipped back into the square. They’d planned to meet at the front door to the shop where he’d waited for Andrei.

“His guards saw you look up at me. You’re being followed. Don’t come home until you’re sure you’ve lost them. I’ll get everything ready.”

Molly felt sick. A few of the people around her had called the police, and the crowd had begun to thin out and panic. Someone stepped on her foot.

She walked quickly. Her heart hammered in her chest. She glanced in shop windows to see behind her. After three left turns, a middle-aged woman still followed several paces back. She’d taken off her hat despite the cold wind, but Molly still noticed her.

Molly started to shiver; she ducked into a grocery store. The woman pretended to look at fruit while Molly wandered the aisles, eventually buying a box of cereal when she’d sensed she’d stayed too long.

She spent the next few hours pretending to run errands. By the time she’d picked up plasters, the woman had disappeared. She headed home. Sherlock sat on the sofa with their bags packed when she she arrived.

“I’m the worst, Sherlock,” Molly said.

“We’re leaving right now,” he said.

He handed her her suitcase, and the left the groceries on the floor They sped down the staircase.

“Where are we going?”

“China. Mycroft arranged a delayed flight so we’d make it.”

 

Within a few hours, they’d taken off. Molly wished she’d brought something to do. She imagined Sherlock’s boredom must be ten times worse.

He stopped scowling out the window for a moment and looked over at her, his eyes soft. “You’re not the worst,” he said.

She’d been daydreaming. His voice startled her. “What?”

“I’m not upset with you.”

“That’s good, I suppose.” She didn’t know what else to say to that.

“Then why have you looked like you’re on the verge of tears since you got home?”

“I’m fine, Sherlock.” He looked doubtful. She sighed. “I feel like such an idiot.”

“I don’t associate with idiots.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

The pair sat in silence for a while longer. Sherlock had burrowed deep into his mind palace when a pressure on his shoulder dragged him out of it. Molly had fallen asleep against him.

 

Molly frowned at the calendar she’d brought from safe house to safe house. Sherlocked walked past her open door and spotted something decidedly droopy and not-okay in her posture. He took two steps back and watched her from the doorway.

“Molly?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

She gasped and turned around; both of them had gotten jumpier lately. “Oh. It’s just you,” she said.

“You looked sad. Just now.”

Some words about looking sad when you think no one can see you echoed in both of their heads.

“It’s nothing. My dad’s birthday is April 2nd.” He answered with a blank look. “Today’s March 31st.”

“That’s John’s birthday,” Sherlock said in a small voice.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said. Sherlock didn’t understand what she was sorry for.

She came to the door and embraced him. He surprised both of them by holding on as if he’d never let go.

 

A few months later, Sherlock turned to her when they’d found their seats on another plane. “We’re staying with someone in Washington,” he said.

“Someone?” Molly looked at him as if he were a scale giving her the wrong reading.

“Irene Adler.”

Molly’s frown deepened. “She’s dead.”

“So am I.” He smiled.

“You lied to me, didn’t you?”

“She fooled me, too.”

Molly sunk lower in her seat, drawing her knees up and resting them against the back of the seat in front of her. She couldn’t decided what made her feel worse: Sherlock’s lying or Irene’s outsmarting him. Memories of that Christmas still made her cringe.

“And you’re trusting her?”

“Of course not.” He snorted.

Molly considered that for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. “But we need her to get to Kate.”

“You don’t like that.”

“I’m worried.”

“You should be.”

“Thanks,” she said. She took a pack of gum out of her pocket and unwrapped a piece. “That makes me feel better.”

“I’m not about to lie to you. The Woman can be a lot to handle. Don’t let her get to you.”

If Molly could have slumped lower in her seat, she would have. Irene’s nickname brought too many uncomfortable questions to mind.

“That’s comforting.”

Sherlock sighed and tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. “We should be out of there soon. Better?”

She held out the pack of gum, but Sherlock shook his head as he always did. Takeoffs and landings never seemed to bother him.

“A bit.” He spotted the barest hint of a smile. “I’m bored already.”

“We haven’t even left the ground.”

“Do the flight attendant.”

Sherlock sighed. “Married, but she has lovers in Rome and Tokyo…”

 

Irene picked them up at the airport. Molly noted that she looked even better clothed and alive than she had on the autopsy table.

“Mark,” she said, using his most recent alias when she caught sight of Sherlock. She kissed him on both cheeks and spoke with a flawless American dialect. “It’s great to see you.”

Sherlock stood with an unusual tension in his back and shoulders. “It’s good to see you, too,” he said.

“This must be Anna. It’s lovely to finally meet you in person,” said Irene.

“Nice to meet you, too,” said Molly. She beamed despite the predatory glint in Irene’s smile and wished they hadn’t needed to come to Washington.

 

Irene joined Molly at the breakfast table the next morning. Molly, in a ponytail and pyjama pants with kittens on them, felt silly sitting next to Irene, who came downstairs in a silk robe, looking far too put together for someone who had just woken up.

“You’re going to meet with Kate today,” Irene said.

Molly swallowed a bite of cereal and nodded. “I think so. I was going to speak to her at work.”

“You’re going to need different clothes to blend in.” Irene’s gaze traveled down Molly’s body.

Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, Molly crossed her legs. “Then I guess I’m going shopping today.”

“I should have something that fits you.”

Molly forced herself to smile, but Irene continued to look at her like a cat watching a bird. She only needed a tail twitching behind her to complete the picture.

“Thank you.”

They finished eating, and Irene led her to the bedroom. Molly stood near the door as her host dug through the closet.

“Strip.”

“What?” Molly’s eyes went wide.

Irene turned around to look at her. “If I’m going to dress you, I need to see what I’m working with. Though I’m sure we’d both enjoy it after you finish. You’d bruise beautifully.” She stepped closer and ran a hand along Molly’s cheek.

“N-no thank you.”

“Pity. You’re still pining for Sherlock, aren’t you?”

Molly said nothing, unsure of the answer. Months of tracking down a criminal empire had pushed that to the back of her mind. Irene returned to shifting through clothes, and Molly pulled off her pyjamas.

After a few tries, they settled on a pencil skirt and blazer that fit well. Molly sat down and tried to reacquaint herself with the scrape of nylons against her legs as Irene did her hair. She emerged from the bedroom with her face made up and her hair pulled back into a bun. Sherlock sat on the sofa with his laptop and looked up

“What do you think?” Irene said.

“Ridiculous,” said Sherlock. He scowled and returned his attention to the computer.

Molly’s face fell. Irene patted her arm and said, “You look lovely, darling. Don’t let him bother you.”

Her words didn’t do anything to untangle the knot forming in Molly’s stomach. “Thanks,” she said.

“Will you be home for dinner?” Irene rested a hand on Molly’s arm.

Molly swallowed thickly, a little afraid to pull away. “Maybe.”`

Sherlock managed to look more disgruntled. Molly noticed but didn’t know what to make of it.

Irene turned to Sherlock. “Sounds like you and I are alone for dinner.”

“I have to go,” Molly mumbled. She ducked out of the room to grab her coat.

 

Sherlock hadn’t moved from his spot on Irene’s sofa when Molly returned. He stared up at the ceiling, fingers steepled, and didn’t look up when she opened the door.

“It went well. I’m meeting Kate for lunch in two days,” Molly said.

She glanced around the flat but didn’t seen any sign of Irene. Sherlock continued to ignore her as she put down a bag and hung up her coat, but he made a face when she moved his legs to sit down.

“I picked up the chemicals as well,” she said.

He sat up too quickly, and his vision went dark for a moment. “Why didn’t you mention that first?” he said.

“I thought you’d see the shopping bags and make a deduction.”

“I was in the mind palace.” He strode towards the kitchen. Molly grabbed the bag and trailed after him.

She hadn’t handled chemicals in over a year. Measuring and watching for changes felt nice, though she hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it. She was watching a thermometer when Sherlock fell.

He’d fainted. She dropped to her knees next to him and checked that he was breathing. His eyes fluttered open.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” He sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head and wincing.

Molly got up to grab an ice pack. She wrapped it in a towel and handed it to him. “Did you eat today?”

“No.”

He put the ice pack on the back of his head and reached for her with the other hand. She helped him up, noticing how cold his hands were.

“You need to eat.”

“Digestion slows me down.”

“Let’s have dinner,” Irene said, leaning against the doorframe.

Molly jumped and pulled her hand away from Sherlock. She wondered how long Irene had watched them. The thought made her blush.

“Maybe he’d eat if you’d stop pushing dinner,” Molly said.

“Pardon?” said Irene.

“You haven’t give him a break since we got here.”

Irene opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Molly might have imagined it, but she thought she saw Sherlock smile for a moment. Cocking her head, Irene studied Molly for a long moment.

“I think I was wrong about you,” she said eventually.

“What do you mean?” Molly furrowed her brows.

“It would be fun to try, but I don’t think you’d break that easily.”

 

Molly met Kate at a cafe for lunch. She forced herself to take a few bites of her salad despite wanting to vomit from nerves. They talked business, and Molly managed to keep her aliases straight. She and Sherlock had collected them like baseball cards over the last year and a half.

“Just a moment. Excuse me,” Kate said. She stood up and headed for the loo.

Molly put her hands in her lap to disguise her shaking. She ripped open a packet with sweaty palms. She’d made the contents with Sherlock. “Actually,” she said, “I’ve got to go, too. I’ll come with you.”

“Alright,” said Kate.

Molly stood up and followed her. On the way, she slipped some powder into Kate’s drink. No one in the restaurant appeared to notice.

They’d almost finished lunch when Kate’s face began to go green. Molly’s phone rang. She glanced at it and smiled an apology.

“Sorry. I’ve got to take this…Hello?...oh, dear. Really?...oh my god...on my way.” She turned to Kate. “I’m so sorry, but my sister’s very sick, and I’ve got to go.”

“I understand. I’ll be in touch.” Kate smiled weakly.

Molly had almost left the country by the time Kate finished choking.

 

Sherlock strode towards the terminal and pulled his suitcase behind him. He stopped when he realised Molly had stopped following him several yards back.

“Aren’t you coming?” he said. A few impatient passengers pushed past him.

“There’s plenty of time before we have to board.”

“So?”

“I’m hungry.”

Sherlock sighed. They dragged their luggage over to the airport’s food court. Sherlock saved a table and watched their bags.

After a minute or so, she came back with a tray of fast food. His way of staring while she ate used to make her uncomfortable, but she’d gotten used to it. She would have asked him to deduce the other passengers, but he hadn’t spoken much since they’d left Irene’s. When she interrupted his thoughts, she got ignored or a rude response.

He reached over and took a chip. “Don’t look at me like that. You said I needed to eat more.”

She pushed the cup of chips closer to him. “I didn’t think you’d listen to me.”

“I always listen to you.”

“Since when?” she said, laughing.

He took another chip and didn’t answer. They lapsed back into to silence. “You handled the Woman well,” he said eventually.

That nickname again, the one that made Molly cringe. She considered asking Sherlock about it again, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“I did?” Her eyebrows shot up.

“You heard me.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

He said nothing else, just took another chip. For the next year and a half, Sherlock rarely ate food he hadn’t stolen from Molly’s plate.

 

Molly waited in the driver’s seat, scanning the street for a sign of Sherlock. He staggered into the car, mopping blood off his face with a sleeve.

“What did he do to you?” said Molly.

“Just drive,” Sherlock said. He sounded out of breath.

She pulled out of the parking space and glanced over at him. “Did you…?”

“Yes.”

She thought she’d feel as if a weight lifted off her shoulders, but she didn’t believe it enough to feel relieved. Surely another enemy would appear before they got to London.

“Really?”

He smiled into the bloodied sleeve. “Really.”

“I’m scared.” Of everything, she thought. Of seeing my family again. Of trying to get my job back. Of going back to being your lab rat.

“Me, too.”

They drove the rest of the way to the airport in silence, each caught up in imagining reunions. When they arrived, Molly helped him wash his face with the contents of a water bottle. It didn’t look as bad without the blood, save his split lip and bruises. At least he’d managed to avoid a black eye.

“I have a question,” she said as he dried himself off.

“As long as it’s not stupid.”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “When you take down Moran...will you still need me?” she said in a small voice.

He considered it. “Not if I can avoid it. John might…”

She tried not to look disappointed, though she knew Sherlock would notice anyway. His answer made sense. John was better suited to danger.

“I understand.”

He finished drying his face. Molly looked forward to her last flight in a long while.

“Molly?”

She paused in the process of grabbing her battered suitcase from the trunk. “Yes?”

“Thank you for everything. I wouldn’t have made it here without you.”

“That’s what friends are for,” she said with all the brightness she could muster.

In Molly’s sitting room, Sherlock pulled his coat on with trembling fingers. After a debrief from Mycroft upon landing in London, they’d gone back to her flat and spent the next thirteen hours sleeping off jet lag.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she said, passing him his scarf.

“I’ve waited three years for this,” he said.

“You can still be nervous.” Thinking about meeting with her family and friends and lying made her stomach twist.

He stared at the scarf, rubbing the soft wool. Last time he’d worn it, he’d jumped off the roof of Bart’s.

“I don’t know what I’ll find. Or if he’ll forgive me.”

Molly reached up and tugged on his chin so he looked her in the eyes. “John loves you. He might be angry, but he’ll be too thrilled to have you back to stay that way.”

“You can’t know that.”

She smiled. “Do you want a pep talk or not?”

He knotted the scarf around his neck, feeling more himself. She dropped her hand. “I don’t know if I’ll be back.”

“It’s fine. I’ll see you soon?”

He nodded. She hugged him tightly. It took him a moment to react and put his arms around her waist. She pulled away a second later than he expected. His coat streaming behind him, he left and muttered “goodbye.”

Molly sighed and watched him go.

 

_He punched me. And cried a bit, but I think we’re fine now. SH_

_I’m glad to hear it. -Molly_

Molly’s most dramatic reunion had been with her cat. She returned to work that week; Mycroft had held her old job for her. It didn’t take her long to visit family and friends she’d missed and catch up.

Two weeks after he’d returned, Sherlock burst into the lab just as he had before. Molly looked up from her work and grinned.

“I need to see the stabbing victim from this morning,” Sherlock said, “Please.”

Molly got up to wheel the body out. “Hello to you, too. And I’m well, since you didn’t ask.”

John’s eyebrows shot up at Sherlock’s manners and threatened to disappear into his hairline at Molly’s response. Molly unzipped the body bag and peeled the sides back. Sherlocked leaned forward to examine the body.

“I’m going to have to run more tests,” Sherlock said.

“Alright,” said Molly. She walked away, but turned back to him after a few steps. “When they brought him down, one of the nurses said he’d been muttering about a tiger. Was it- Did Moran kill him?”

“I believe so.”

“If you’re going after him, please be careful.”

Sherlock looked up from the corpse, his eyes meeting hers with a peculiar intensity. “Of course.”

He held her gaze until a cough from John made them both jump. Sherlock went back to his usual commanding self, rattling off procedures he needed done, though he added “please” and “thank you” now.

At Baker Street, John and Sherlock flopped onto their respective chairs, Moran safely dispatched and the adrenaline buzz fading. Sherlock started to doze off.

“What happened between you and Molly?” said John.

Sherlock’s eyes flickered open. “I’ve already told you. She took down Moriarty’s web with me.” John still looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You don’t like that answer.”

“It explains some of it, but I didn’t expect you to be making eyes at her over that corpse.”

“I don’t make eyes-”

“You like her.”

John smiled. Sherlock scowled.

“I’m indebted to her. Molly is…” Sherlock paused to search for the right words but failed to find them. “a good friend.”

“A good friend you’re on the verge of flirting with. Just tell her. She’ll be thrilled to hear it.”

Sherlock flung one of the sofa cushions at John’s head. John dodged it and laughed.

“I mean it, Sherlock.”

Sherlock crossed his arms. “Even if I did feel that way about Molly, I wouldn’t know how to proceed. Not my area.”

“Then you’re lucky that it’s mine.”

 

Molly was setting out food for Toby when she heard a knock at her door. She padded over to answer it in pyjamas and wet hair. Sherlock stood in her doorway, his hands laced behind his back.

“Have you killed Moran?” she said.

“He’s in custody,” said Sherlock.

Tension in Molly’s shoulders disappeared. A slow smile spread across her face. “Really?”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

She gave a little sigh of exasperation. “Why don’t you come in before Toby gets out?” He stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him. “Thank you for coming to tell me in person.”

“That’s not why I came here.”

He his gaze landed everywhere in the room except for Molly’s face. She cocked her head and studied him, wondering if something with Moran’s arrest had gone wrong.

“Then what is it?”

“Have dinner with me,” he said, almost too soft for her to hear.

“To celebrate?”

“Not exactly. John’s brought it to my attention that I might have- Since you’d taken down the web, I-”

Molly thought she caught a hint of colour appearing on his cheeks. She’d never seen him blush or stammer before. Usually she was the one who did that.

“What are you asking me?”

He finally managed to look at her. “I love you, Molly.”

“That’s not a question,” she said, taking a step away from him.

Sherlock felt like an idiot; he shouldn’t have said that. He raked a hand through his hair and started to pace.

“Forget I said that. I’m doing this all wrong. Molly, I would like to be in a romantic relationship with you.”

Molly’s eyes went wide. “What? Since when?”

“I’m not sure. My feelings changed while we were away, I think, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea to do anything about them at the time. And you still haven’t said anything in regards to dinner.”

“Since when have you ever wanted to go to dinner?” She smiled.

“It’s what John said to do.”

Molly made a mental note that thank John later. She stepped closer to Sherlock and put her hands on his shoulders.

“I already ate, so we can skip dinner.”

“What about-”

She got on tiptoe and kissed him. “Does that answer your question?”

“Could you repeat that for clarity?”

She kissed him again, one hand finding its way into his hair. He pulled her closer.

Sherlock and Molly hadn’t come back the same as they’d left, but neither one minded.


End file.
